


Slash And Burn

by Merixcil



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Death of the Family (DCU), Injury, M/M, Non-Consensual Bondage, Torture, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 06:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: Joker issues  an ultimatum and Bruce chooses just as wisely as he can





	Slash And Burn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashes/gifts).



> A few weeks back Ashes was talking about how there isn't enough Death Of The Family fic in the world and I agree and it's their birthday so here is a DotF fic for everyone but mostly for Ashes 
> 
> I'd recommend double checking the tags before reading on

The dark is, in many ways, the worst part of the whole ordeal. Because there’s no way it’s not the precursor to something terrible. The whole point of keeping your prey in the dark is to scare it into submission so that when light is finally cast over its surroundings it’s already on edge, convinced that you can’t show it anything more terrible than it has already imagined.

Bruce has never had a particularly good imagination. He’s sure that whatever Joker has planned for him it will be far beyond anything he could anticipate.

“The first time was frightening, wasn’t it? Look! Look, here it comes, see?”

Something twitches into view, pale and ghostly. Bruce fights the urge to screw his eyes shut. “Joker…”

“Yesss, Joker is here with you in the dark. We’re watching it come for you, as I’m sure it did that first time.”

In all his years of traipsing in and out of Arkham Asylum, Joker has never been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder. Bruce struggles to think of who he might mean when he says ‘we’. Harley’s done with him, as far as he can tell, and there are very few villains left in the city who are still willing to work with him.

“Ooohh… It wants you! It wants you bad!”

“Joker, listen to-“ Bruce flexes his arms and finds them bound tight to what feels like a chair beneath him, high enough up his arms that dislocating a thumb and slipping through them unnoticed is off the table.

“No. There is no reasoning with it. It was the same for me, when I saw it coming… when I saw _you_ coming. No reasoning.”

The cursed strains of something soft slipping through the clown’s cracked voice, his non-existent lips, to add reverence to what should be the ramblings of a madman send panic rushing up fast through Bruce’s throat. He pushes all the harder against his bindings, trying to tip the chair. “Stop this! Now!”

“And so you called out there in the dark! Even though you knew you were seeing it! Your face, your real bone and tooth face beneath it all.”

“Joker!”

“You knew it in your soul, but still you called out to someone, anyone, to pull you up from the darkness and into the light.”

It’s a bat skeleton, swooping towards him, the blank eyes and nose hole giving way to blackness that is promptly swamped by colour as Joker brings the lights up to reveal a table all but empty save for a series of silver platters each placed in front of one guest at the feast. It takes Bruce all of two seconds to catalogue uniforms and heights. Damian, Dick, Barbara, Jason and Tim, each with a bag pulled over their heads.

“My God…” Bruce whispers.

Joker beams down at him, eyes shining over a mouth stretched into a permanent smile from where he flayed his own flesh.

“What have you done to them?”

“Something fun, you’ll see.” Joker winks. “In the meantime I’ve kept them entertained. I’ve been talking to them for hours, telling them what you really think of them. Their ears are _burning_.”

Something about the way he says it leads Bruce to believe that there’s nothing metaphorical in what Joker’s saying, and absurdly his first thought is to consider how difficult it’s going to be retraining them all to hear through the hacked off holes they now have in their head in place of ears. Imagine that, a whole fleet of Bat family children, all of them deaf. If he were into the social media aspect of the superhero franchise he could make a killing marketing them like that.

Bruce tries to shake the thought from his head but doesn’t get very far. There’s a rope around his head, pinning the cowl to his skin. He moves to rise out of the chair and finds it strangely easy to move away.

“Not so fast!” Joker snaps, is hands clasped over each side of Dick's head. “I wouldn’t get up just yet if I were you. After all…you smell something?”

Its an obvious ploy, most likely a trap, and Bruce falls right into it. He takes a deep breath and catches a strong whiff of the rotting flesh adorning Jokers face, the terrible breath that can't be kept at bay now he no loner has a mouth to close. Beneath all that though is something rich and pungent, something more familiar and far less intimate.

Bruce growls low in his throat. “Gasoline.”

There’s a moment in which Joker physically shudders, hand coming forward to press against the front of his trousers in a manner lewd and predictable and far more interesting than it should be. If he could cut off his face, what else might he cut off? If Joker were to drop his pants right now, would Bruce be graced with the sight of a rotting hunk of flesh that used to be his genitals, strapped back on and accompanied by a joke about emasculation to complete the picture? Joker would say he did it all for his Bat, his precious nemesis, and the rush of power Bruce feels at the very idea is repulsive and wonderful all at once.

The look in Joker’s eyes approaches worship. “That’s right. They’ve been anointed and they await your judgement…there are flints beneath your throne…and under your table, sire. So at any time during our meal, should your true feelings get the better of you, should you tire of their company…all you need to do is stand, leave the table, and they will burn with shame.”

Again with the king thing. Bruce can’t pretend he doesn’t like it, just a little bit, that he hasn’t thought about Joker in his jester’s hat kneeling at his feet and coming quietly when called. He has to wonder if it would really be that simple, if all he’d need to do would be to say yes to get the clown right where he wants him. Dancing through the halls of a mansion built for just the two of them, the smell of putrid meat hanging high in the air.

The smell is so strong. Brue blinks and sees that Joker is at the other end of the room and there’s no way that it should be able to travel that far and remain that pungent.

“What did you do?” Bruce asks. And he’s apprehensive to know but he’s also excited. After all these years this encounter feels special, significant, like Joker’s pulled out all the stops to persuade him of how measly other people are compared to the great Bat.

“I made you dinner.” Joker smiles, and with a flourish he pulls off the bag covering Barbara’s face while knocking the lid off the platter in front of her.

For a moment, Bruce can’t breathe. Barbara’s slumped forward, head wrapped in bandages that drip blood onto the table in front of her. Joker uses his shock to uncover the others, all in a similar state, their eyes closed through the holes in the bandages.

Bruce blinks. “I…what?”

“I gave ‘em the old, Joker makeover!” Joker says, and breaks off into a stream of cackles that echo loud and unnerving in the small room of the cave. “Just look at the results.”

Bruce refocuses his gaze over the platters sat in front of each of the kids, the piles of ice each draped with something ragged and bloody, soaking up yet more blood as the diners each drip a steady stream over their plates.

None of them have lost their ears, it’s very nearly funny how Joker set himself up for that one but didn’t fall for it. Unpredictable humour, except this isn’t supposed to be funny and yet it sort of it.

“What do you think?” Joker asks, leaning up against Bruce’s chair.

Bruce thinks this should be awful, but something is refusing to click into place in his head. He’d blame it on the shock but he’s seen so much in his time as Batman that really, if a few kids with their faces cut off are enough to shut him up he really ought not to be doing this. “I-“

“Because I think that six people in this room had their faces cut off for your benefit, and one of them stayed standing while the other five are carelessly losing blood all over the place. You don’t even wanna know what I did to your butler, darling. They really are all a bunch of idiots.”

They’re not idiots, they’re really not. But Bruce tried so hard to teach them how to save themselves and yet…

He starts running the numbers in his head, the time it would take to get to a hospital, assuming they’re in the network of caves below the manor as he suspects, the blood they would all lose before they got there judging by how rapidly they’re all bleeding now, assuming they’ve only been here for half an hour and Joker hasn’t given them anything to thin the blood.

There’s an easy way to do this and a hard way. Bruce finds his feet, shaking all over, and rises just as steadily as he is able.

For a moment, nothing happens, then a lick of flame starts up underneath Jason’s seat, spreading fast beneath the rest of them. None of them even scream, the heat not enough to wake them in their final moments and really, doesn’t that say it all? The greatest hand to hand fighting squad Bruce could have hoped to assemble and all it took was a razorblade and some tactically placed flints.

He turns to Joker, whose eyes are blown wide with joy, clutching desperately at his stomach as he tries to laugh himself out. The smoke is building fast  within the cave and they need to move if they want to live. If Bruce thinks it’s somewhat pathetic to die of blood loss at the mercy of an overhyped street performer then it’s nothing on how he feels about suffocating through the smoke.

“We need to go!” He snaps, jerling his head towards a tunnel at the back of the cave.

“Just…just a moment!” Joker gasps around his guffaws. “Just take a moment, Batsy, breathe it all in.”

Bruce breathes deep and smells smoke, burning flesh, the ending notes of gasoline going up in flames. And at the tale end of that something vile and bitter, the smell of Joker’s skin still decaying, leaving behind the new face he carved for himself.

Joker meets his gaze and smiles, because like this he’s always smiling. “You ready to go, darling?” He pulls a knife from his belt to slash open the bindings still trapping Bruce’s arms then offers out a begloved hand for him to take.

Without hesitation, Bruce slips his hand into Joker’s and follows the smell of decay. It’s more useful to him than the sight of everything he ever worked for burning down around his ears.


End file.
